Only Daughter: An gripping and emotional psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist

by Sarah A. Denzil

  ‘Yes.’ DS Slater checks his notes. ‘Fern Lane.’

  ‘Right. Well I ended up on Fern Lane and the car was still visible in my mirror. Daniel Hawthorne was the driver, though I didn’t know it at the time. He was wearing a hat to conceal his identity. Then he rammed into me.’

  ‘Did you brake?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes. I was scared.’

  He makes a note.

  ‘You know he was having sex with my daughter, his student?’

  DS Slater nods. ‘Yes, you hired a private investigator.’ He exhales slowly through his nose and raises his eyebrows, but fails to meet my gaze.

  ‘The baby was his.’

  He nods again, not saying a word.

  ‘He was sending me those threatening messages.’

  ‘We’re going to check those messages. Mr Hawthorne will certainly be facing harassment charges if there’s enough evidence. You’re within your rights to file a restraining order against him.’

  I shake my head. ‘He doesn’t scare me. He’s an idiot.’

  DS Slater puts down his pen and observes me closely, his expression both thoughtful and serious. ‘Idiots are capable of a lot, Mrs Cavanaugh. Go visit a prison sometime and see what I mean.’

  ‘If he’s willing to break the law to try and hurt me, I’m not sure what good a restraining order will do.’

  ‘Very well. I was just saying that it’s an option.’

  I smile. ‘Okay.’

  He scribbles in his notebook again.

  ‘Do you believe his alibi?’ I ask. ‘Or are you beginning to understand that I’m right, and my daughter didn’t kill herself?’

  ‘I do believe his alibi,’ he replies, ‘because his wife doesn’t have any reason to lie. For one thing, she’s left him. Also, he made a phone call at home that would make it almost impossible for him to have got to the quarry at the time of your daughter’s death. I’m sorry; I know that must be disappointing for you.’

  There’s no triumph in his voice. DS Slater is genuinely sorry, and I can see clearly that he pities me. He thinks I’m delusional.

  ‘So you’re not going to reopen the investigation into my daughter’s death?’ I ask.

  He lifts his palms, not so much in a shrug but in a gesture almost like an apology. ‘Not unless we receive some concrete evidence that Grace was murdered. This affair with the teacher – well, I’m afraid it suggests to me that she was under even more stress than perhaps anyone could have imagined.’

  ‘And her phone?’

  ‘We searched the area,’ he says. ‘There was nothing at the quarry, nothing at the school.’

  ‘But did you look thoroughly? Her phone could be important,’ I insist.

  He sighs. ‘We did. But we need our resources elsewhere now.’

  Michelle brings over two mugs of tea as the detective continues with his questions, asking for boring, minute details about the positions of the cars as I find my attention drifting back to Grace. Finally, I’ve uncovered the identity of the father, but it hasn’t answered all of my questions. If Daniel Hawthorne didn’t kill my daughter, who did? Or did Grace commit suicide after all?

  Thirty-Two

  My most overwhelming emotion is in fact a colour. Blue. The blue tinge of the hospital lights. The blue gown my husband is wearing. This is the first time, since he admitted to me that he has cancer, that it feels real. Charles has a biopsy to suffer through today and I decided to come with him. Now that I see the fear in his eyes, I can’t believe I ever doubted him. And that doesn’t come from a place of love or naiveté or delusion. This is real. There’s no way he’d go this far to lie to me.

  This is the last step in the diagnostic process, apparently, and it’s also to determine the level of aggression of the cancer. The doctor mentions a Gleason score.

  ‘Are you all right? Comfortable?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, I’m about to have a needle plunged into my rectum.’ He shakes his head and lets out a laugh. ‘To be honest, I feel terrible. Like I might be sick, or, I don’t know, cry.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ For once I mean it. For our situation, for the fact that Grace isn’t here to comfort him. I feel sorry for all of it, which in some ways takes me by surprise. These last few weeks have revealed a depth to my emotions that I hadn’t known existed.

  His hand wraps around mine as we wait for the doctor to come into the room. Then Charles will be taken somewhere private. We didn’t marry for love, Charles and I, and the gold-digger insult that Jenny threw in my face isn’t far from the truth, but we’ve been through a lot together since then. Charles is all I have left in the world, and I don’t want him to leave me.

  ‘That day, when I came to Derby and I set up that fake meeting, I…’ I’m not sure what to say in order to make things right. My apologies aren’t usually sincere; they’re constructed to make me come across like a normal person with a conscience. ‘I was very wrong and I’m sorry. It was unforgivable, but I want you to know that I feel closer to you now than I ever have before. I know things have been… strained since then. But I want to move on. I want to make this work.’

  He shakes his head and lets out a strangled laugh. ‘You know what’s ridiculous? It took me a fortnight to forgive you.’

  We’re silent for a few moments, until Charles says, ‘But you weren’t wrong about everything. My company have cut corners. For the sake of making more money, we took unnecessary risks.’ He lifts his hand and wafts it in front of his chest. ‘What do we need more money for? Money didn’t stop me getting cancer, did it? It didn’t stop Grace from dying.’

  ‘No, it didn’t. And if she were here, she’d tell you to stop being a bastard and do the right thing.’ But I falter. My voice drops. ‘Wouldn’t she? God, Charles, that video of her bullying the girl. That wasn’t the real her. I won’t remember her like that.’ I stare up at the fluorescent light until my eyes burn. ‘Grace would hate seeing you like this. But she would love seeing us still together after everything that’s happened.’

  He nods.

  ‘Do you think she picked up on it? I mean, we don’t fight, but I don’t think we have the most conventional marriage. We never married for love, did we? Do you think that’s why she was concerned she didn’t feel love?’

  ‘I loved you. I still love you.’

  I blink in surprise, shocked by the tingling sensation spreading all over my body. ‘You can’t love someone if you don’t know who they are. I’ve been hiding—’

  He taps my hand twice with his finger. ‘I know you, Kat. You keep thinking that you’re different from the rest of the world and that no one could possibly care for you. But that isn’t true. I see who you are, and I love you.’

  But I shake my head. ‘No, no, I’m a terrible person. How could you possibly love me? After what I accused you of…’

  ‘Tell me why you think you’re a terrible person. Tell me now.’

  I’m about to open my mouth and reply when the doctor walks in. He begins to inform Charles all about the procedure he’s about to undergo. Charles’s hand wraps around my fingers and squeezes. It’s only after at least five minutes of listening to the doctor that I realise Charles is comforting me.

  * * *

  Once home, I sit with Charles in the bedroom for a while, but he drifts off to sleep, resting from the stress and pain of the day. The age difference has never been an issue in our relationship, but as I see him curled up in bed, his head thrown back on the pillow, I can’t help but think about how age has changed his face, his body. And that in itself makes him more vulnerable to me.

  I can’t stop thinking about what he said to me in the hospital. Was it the circumstances that made all those raw emotions come to the surface? Angela always tells me that true sociopaths cannot love, and I have always rebutted this with the certainty that I love my daughter. Now I’m experiencing warmth towards another human being: my husband. This fragile man in my bed. Being a good person means caring for the vulnerable. That’s what I need to do. I need to ca
re for him.

  But what is this? Is it growth? Is my conscience like a bladder that fills with goodness, overflowing with empathy? Or is it a pocket-sized creature that needs to be fed in order to grow? One thing I know is that my conscience-creature was starved of empathy when I was growing up. My mother starved it first, and then I took a life and starved it even more.

  I back out of the room slowly, trying not to wake him. No matter how much I feed my conscience and allow it to grow, I’ll always be a murderer. I can’t take that back. No one can erase their past. And I’ll always be the mother who could have given more to her daughter, who could have saved her.

  I decide to fill the rest of the day with dull chores, starting with feeding the dogs and sending thank-you letters out to the attendees of our charity shoot, and then I sit down to check my emails. Most are spam – a sale at Net-a-Porter, new films released on Netflix, another invitation to a function in London – but then… Lily. An email sent this morning while Charles was in the hospital.

  Hi Mrs Cavanaugh,

  I’m so sorry to bother you. I’m not sure why I’m sending this email to you of all people. Maybe it’s because there isn’t anyone else for me to talk to. My mum doesn’t listen to me. Grace was my only friend and now she’s gone. When we talked the other day, you were nice to me, and you seemed like someone I could talk to.

  I’m having a tough time right now. It’s like I’m stuck in mud and I can’t move. Everything is pressing down on me. I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything. When I’m alone all I think about is ending things once and for all. It’s too hard.

  This is stupid. I shouldn’t be saying these things. My mum is out and I started drinking her vodka and it’s all so stupid.

  Lily

  There’s a sincerity in the way she rambles that makes me believe this is a cry for help. This girl wants to die but she’s fighting to live, and her fear of both of those emotions shines through her words. As soon as I finish reading the email, I close the laptop and take a moment to think. My first thought is that Lily is a connection to Grace, and I can’t lose another connection to my daughter. I must help this girl if I can. I lift the lid of the laptop and begin my reply:

  Hi Lily,

  You can talk to me whenever you like. I’m so sorry that you’re feeling this way and I’m sorry that your mum isn’t helping you. Would you like to meet in the café again?

  Kat

  This girl might need more help than I can give, but I don’t want to fob her off with the number for a hotline or the name of a counsellor. She reached out to me, and I owe it to Grace to follow through. After all, I let Grace down.

  Can we meet today?

  The immediate reply doesn’t surprise me. Lily is probably never more than a few inches away from her phone, like most teenagers.

  I can meet you now, if you like.

  * * *

  Okay.

  I shut down the computer, brush my hair, leave a list of instructions for Michelle and make my way out of the front door. Charles will be asleep for a while yet and I’ll only be an hour or so, even if I do end up stuck in the school traffic through the village.

  It may be selfish of me, but I can’t help but hope that this meeting with Lily might uncover more about Grace. Were Lily and Grace drawn to each other because they were both troubled? Perhaps Lily was a bad influence on Grace. Or the other way around. Maybe they bonded over their bad relationships with their mothers, as much as it pains me to consider it.

  The scent of coffee hits me as I make my way into the café. Lily is immediately visible to me, hunched at the back of the room with long tendrils of hair falling to the table. Was she the person who sent lilies to the house? I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s possible. Perhaps she and Grace joked about her name. Grace never liked lilies, but I could understand why Lily would send them if it was a private joke between the two of them.

  Before I make my way to the table, someone close by clears her throat, catching my attention. When I turn around, I see Alicia standing by the counter, a cardboard coffee cup in her hand. There’s no hint of a smile on her frozen face; instead, her eyes glint like smooth pebbles washed up on the beach.

  ‘Hi, Mrs Cavanaugh,’ she says, in a sarcastically sweet voice. ‘Did you get my message the other day?’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘Ah, that’s right,’ she says. ‘You won’t recognise the number because I got a new phone. Someone stole my old one. I think my mother called you right after I sent it.’

  ‘Oh, that one was from you, was it? What did you say to me? That I’m dead? I’m sorry to disappoint you, Alicia, but it would appear that I’m still breathing.’

  She leans closer, talking quieter. ‘You threatened my mum with some bullshit. I just want you to know I’m not afraid of you.’

  Before I have a chance to reply, Alicia leaves with a flick of her silver hair, turning to look at me through the café window before folding into Ethan’s arms when they meet outside. All I can think is poor Grace; no wonder she needed to find a new friend. I shake my head and move to the back of the café.

  ‘Hi, Lily. Can I get you anything?’ I place my coat over the back of the chair and sit opposite her, suddenly full of nerves. I’ve never had to talk to someone in the throes of depression before. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to say anything comforting or not. People like me aren’t known for their compassion. But as soon as she begins to cry, I instinctively reach out and hold her hand. ‘Are you okay?’

  Between sniffs she nods her head up and down. ‘This is embarrassing.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. It’s absolutely fine. Here, let me get you a tissue.’ I let go of her hand to find the small packet of tissues I brought with me. They weren’t packed for Lily; I just got into the habit of doing it when Grace was a toddler, and now I think I’ll do it forever, despite not having any toddler snot to wipe away.

  She dabs her eyes and lifts her head.

  ‘Oh no. Whoever he is, he isn’t worth it. What can I get you both?’

  I hadn’t noticed the waitress approach while Lily was crying. A big part of me wants to snap at her and tell her to get lost, but I don’t want to make a scene in front of a distraught teenager and I definitely don’t want the waitress sneezing in my coffee.

  ‘Latte, please. Lily?’

  She shakes her head as she blows her nose.

  ‘All right. Won’t be a minute.’ The waitress smiles with pity at Lily and disappears.

  When Lily is finished with her tears, she crumples up the tissue in the palm of her hand. ‘Urgh, I can’t believe I cried in public. I’m such a mess.’

  ‘If it makes you feel any better, I’ve seen several grown men cry in public recently. I almost punched one of them.’

  She cracks a smile. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘To be fair, he deserved it. But that’s not the point.’ I place both hands on the table between us and try to figure out what to say. ‘Your email was very distressing to read. You’re in pain, Lily, and I hate the thought of you being in pain. Grace would… well, she’d be upset to see you like this, and she’d want to be there for you. That’s why I’m here now. I want to be there for you too.’

  Her smile widens. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I saw the scars on your wrists last time we met. I know you’re hurting yourself.’

  She fumbles with the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘It’s the only thing that makes me feel better.’

  ‘You know, I’m here for you if you want to talk, but there’s only so much I can do. Lily, you could have an illness, like depression, and you might need to speak to a professional.’ As I talk, she’s unresponsive, staring down at the table. I decide to take a different direction. ‘I see a therapist every week. We talk through my issues and ways for me to improve. We spend time going over what kind of thoughts I need to ignore and how to redirect my behaviour.’

  Now she lifts her head to regard me. ‘Do you have depression?’

  ‘No, I have something e
lse. But what we talk about in therapy helps me every day. My therapist, Angela, tells me the kinds of thoughts I should ignore.’

  The waitress comes back with my drink and a small plate with a chocolate chip cookie on it. She winks. ‘On the house.’

  Lily smiles gratefully, but she pushes the plate towards me. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘I’ll take it home for my husband.’

  ‘Grace talked about him,’ Lily says. ‘She said he was a billionaire like Bill Gates.’

  I can’t help but laugh. ‘He’s not. He’s rich, but not Bill Gates rich. And he certainly didn’t make it himself; he inherited it.’

  Lily nods. ‘And she said that once he held her hand over a flame on the cooker.’

  I frown. ‘That never happened. I would’ve seen it.’ As far as I remember, Grace never had a burn on her hand.

  ‘She said he touched her, too, in a bad way. But then later she said that he didn’t. I think she used to lie to get attention.’

  Tension ripples through my body. ‘I think she did too. But I don’t know why.’

  Lily leans forward and licks her lips slightly. She lowers her voice as though telling me a secret. ‘Mrs Cavanaugh, I didn’t want to say this before. Grace was my best friend and everything, but sometimes I kind of hated her.’

  Thirty-Three

  ‘I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea,’ she continues. ‘Grace was my friend – honestly, she was. I know she did that awful thing to me, but she felt bad about it after, and then we started talking and hanging out and she was so sweet. We shared everything. But…’

  ‘Go on, Lily, it’s okay.’